1934 Alice in Jails: Streets/Chapter 4: Misfits Outside the City
Synopsis As evening falls at the Russo mansion, Placido Russo asks Gustav St. Germain and Carol how they know Rail and Frank. Where Gustav is calm, Carol is trembling all over, her confiscated camera sitting on a table by Krieck in the back. Gustav suggests Placido contact the Daily Days office in New York City if he doubts them, and that he make use of their secondary capacity as an information brokerage if he wants information on the pair they lunched with. Placido snorts while Krieck warns Gustav not to 'joke', but Gustav meets Krieck's pressure with some of his own. Krieck backs off; Gustav then remarks that the white suit Ladd Russo wore when he was arrested after the Flying Pussyfoot incident originally belonged to Placido, adding that the police had not missed the name embroidered on the suit was not Ladd's. Had they discovered Placido gave the suit to him, it would imply Placido was perhaps aware in advance of Ladd's hijacking plot. With Placido suddenly wary, Gustav reintroduces himself and apologizes for his rudeness, assuring him that the information just now was free of charge. Placido asks if Gustav knows the identities of the robbers who stole the Russos' profits the day before Ladd was arrested, to which Gustav agrees to negotiate rates. He then writes down two names on a memo: Isaac Dian and Miria Harvent, both of whom are—at least as of one month ago—friends with Jacuzzi Splot, the same Jacuzzi who killed Placido's men that day. Since Placido's general distrust in information brokers keeps him from fully trusting Gustav now, he declares he will have Gustav and Carol stay as 'guests' in his mansion until Rail and Frank are caught. Gustav agrees and tells Carol to compose herself, but Carol insists on asking Placido what he intends to do with Rail and Frank. She refers to them as her friends, unable to think of a better word for them despite only meeting them that very day. Gustav calls her 'clumsy', but gives her nearly full marks. Placido says he will let Carol meet them when they arrive, and she nods despite being frightened by his smile. Placido orders Krieck to put the two in separate rooms and under watch for the time being, specifying that Carol be put in Lua Klein's room. When Carol arrives, she is struck by Lua's ghostlike presence and feels rather anxious, though she responds cordially to Lua's cordial greeting. Lua asks Carol why she is here; when Carol says that she seems to be some sort of hostage, Lua says Carol is "just like" her. Carol falls into an uncomfortable silence under Lua's gentle smile. Several days pass without incident after the explosions in Chicago. Then, in the middle of the night, the Lamia sans Rail gather in a corner of the port near the forest—the same spot they originally met a few days back. Hong Chi-Mei grumbles over the situation, his arm which Graham Specter had dislocated still tender, while Sickle is of the opinion "some force" is at work. Leeza Laforet agrees, considering Nebula and Senator Manfred Beriam as potential culprits—ultimately leaning more towards Nebula since the New York contigent appears to have been successfully duped. Sickle kicks the Poet before he can launch into his poetic ramblings, and the group falls into silence. Though Chi and the others had enlisted the twins' help in tracking down Rail, their search had come up with nothing. Meanwhile, Graham has spent the past several days conspicuously strolling around town; what is more, he has been making nightly rounds at pubs and sobering up in public squares or abandoned factories. The Lamia are sure he is trying to lure them into a trap, but tailing him has uncovered nothing about whatever organization is backing him. Chi says that Graham is probably baiting them, and that Christopher Shaldred could likely handle him—but Christopher is not here, and when Sickle points out neither is Rail, Frank begins weeping over not having picked up Rail when he had the chance. The others assure him the situation is not his fault, while Sickle snaps at Leeza for trying to foist the blame onto the absent Rail. She says that Leeza is free to hate Rail, but she must not allow a personal grudge to get in the way of their work; right now, they need to either confirm Rail is safe or prioritize Huey Laforet's orders. Chi defuses the tension by asking Leeza for which reason the Lamia have gathered, and Leeza says both: there has been a development with Rail and Huey has issued instructions. The day after Rail disappeared, Huey decided that Chicago would be the subject for his experiment rather than New York. The twins have been spending the past few days gathering information; thanks to Sham, they now know that Graham is connected to Ladd and the Russo Family. Now that it seems likely the Russos have something to do with the wanted poster Graham had, Leeza proposes they go to the Russo mansion tomorrow night and directly ask the Russo don from where he acquired his information on the Lamia. She says to Frank that it is possible Rail will be there if Rail is the Russos' hostage, but says it is still possible they were snatched by another organization or simply up and vanished. She hopes Rail has not done something 'stupid' like decide now is the time to betray Huey. Bolstered by the thought of rescuing Rail, Frank volunteers to go on the mission. Sickle points out there is still the problem of Graham, but Leeza says they can simply act when he is elsewhere—and that there is a hostage the Lamia can use against him. She cites a "sworn little brother" Graham has in New York, and Ladd Russo as a man he worships; Sickle assumes they will have Larva move on the 'brother' in New York, only for Leeza to name Ladd as the perfect hostage. Not only would Leeza's big sister and a certain someone cause problems in New York, Ladd is at this very moment in Alcatraz—just like Huey. Elsewhere, Rail dreams of their time in Huey's laboratory, experimented on like so many other homunculi had been. They dream of how Huey had carved up their body, he and the other researchers treating Rail like a thing, and how they had coped by developing a sense of superiority over humankind. Thus, when Rail had heard Christopher lost to a human the year before, they had immense trouble believing it—but Chi had said the human was no ordinary person, and Chi was generally trustworthy. Given that Rail had looked up to Christopher as the 'strongest' for some time, they found the idea of Christopher losing difficult to accept. Instead of being disappointed in Christopher, Rail had decided—as much as it bothered them—to raise their opinion of humans. And then Graham had come along and utterly shattered whatever sense of superiority over humans Rail still had. Rail's dream turns nightmarish as they sense Graham and Renee Parmedes Branvillier in the shadows, and they call out Christopher's name in their fright. Christopher answers—and Rail wakes to find Christopher himself peering down at them. Rail sits up on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, and starts tears up once they realize Christopher is not a dream. They ask where Christopher has been all this time, but Christopher has questions of his own: why was Rail injured by their own explosion and what are the Lamia doing in Chicago; why was Frank not with them; and whether the Poet is still loopy. Rail fires back even more questions, but the cycle of questioning finally breaks when Ricardo Russo tells them to be quiet. As Ricardo fiddles with a radio set, he continues that—while almost no one is in the mansion right now—there is only so much he can cover up. After introducing himself to Rail, he points to the stairs and says it will be safer for Rail to hide in the attic—though Rail initially takes it as a joke, he is serious. Rail admits to being confused, but Christopher admits the same; picking up the Lamia's wanted poster, he asks what on earth the Lamia have been up to while he was away. Shocked to see Christopher has the poster at all, Rail jumps to the potential conclusion that Christopher was the one who sold them out; though Christopher is visibly troubled, Rail exclaims that they would have been happy to sell out Huey with him and asks why Christopher did not invite him to join. Given that their conversation is once again threatening to veer off-course, Ricardo sighs and instructs them to describe their respective situations first. In Placido's room, Placido is none too happy to hear there has been no sign of the Lamia since Graham's fight with them. Krieck says he has men watching the streets in case the Lamia try to flee the city, but this is cold comfort; Placido reminds him that the Family is finished if Nebula decides they are no longer useful, and has one of his subordinates summon Gustav to the room. Once Gustav arrives, he pointedly says he cannot obtain the information he needs if he is not allowed contact with the outside world. Placido grudgingly gives him permission to leave and gather sources, though he reminds him that Carol is still in the Russos' custody. Krieck asks Placido if they can trust Gustav after Gustav departs; scoffing that Gustav has probably always been a 'phony', Placido replies that they will just sell Carol and her camera should Gustav run for it. For the time being, Placido says, the Russos need to get a hold of themselves before Ladd is freed next month. Krieck wonders if Nebula will keep their promise to give the Russos the liqour for perfect immortality, but Placido says all that matters for now is that the Russos gather as many cards as they can—which still includes the Lamia. Maintaining his confidence in front of his men, he boasts that the Russos will make Nebula listen to them even if they have to resort to threats. Between the two organizations, the Russos are the ones more familiar with the shady side of the law. Several hours have passed since Rail first woke, during which time he and Christopher had managed to give each other their stories. Puzzled by how silent Rail has been, Christopher correctly guesses why they are in a bad mood: Christopher, the very reason Rail started believing homunculi were superior to humans, has gone and made friends with a human. If Christopher is on equal footing with a human, what does that make Rail? Sighing, Rail thanks Christopher for putting into words what they had been unable to. Now that Rail understands their feelings more clearly, they add—of all the humans Christopher could make friends with, why did it have to be someone as dainty and sulky as Ricardo? Aware that Ricardo can probably hear them, Rail continues complaining about how Ricardo must be some spoiled rich kid if he has his own bathroom, and rather flippantly says Christopher apparently wanted to live the rich life all along. Christopher agrees that he does want to live like the rich, and the poor, the sick, the commoners, the powerful—he yearns for natural human activity no matter what it is. For unnatural beings like the Lamia, living a long time hurts too much without dreams. As they talk, Ricardo climbs up the ladder and announces he will use an errand as an excuse to sneak Rail out of the mansion tomorrow. Until then, he advises against wandering around the mansion; the syndicate is currently high-strung since they still have not found the Lamia. Rail asks what Ricardo means by "carry you outside," and Ricardo, indicating the big suitcase in the corner of the room, says he and Christopher used it to sneak Rail and Rail's possessions into the mansion in the first place. Rail threatens to set off a bomb and cause trouble for Ricardo, disliking Ricardo's attitude, but Ricardo points out it would be trouble for Chris too before leaving. Once Ricardo is gone, Rail swears that the two of them are not going to get along and lambastes Ricardo for taking such an attitude with a stranger. Christopher reminds Rail that Ricardo is still a child and probably has trouble keeping his personal feelings and public mask separate—not that Christopher personally tries. As for those feelings, Christopher guesses Ricardo might be jealous Rail might take away his one and only friend. Rail is a tad perturbed Christopher could say something that self-important so straightforwardly—and that he just might be right. That night, the Poet approaches a group of guards by the Russo mansion's back entrance and asks if the mansion is Placido's residence. When they demand he take off his hat, he obliges by raising its brim and makes eye contact. The men fall into a trance; he informs them that their shift is over, has them hand over the keys to the back gate, and lulls them into sleep with assurances that he is taking over guard duty. Once the men slump back against the wall, Sickle, Chi, and Frank walk over. The Poet is full of guilt over his 'sin', but Sickle ignores him and snatches the keys out of his hand—one key for the service entrance, the other to the big gate for cars. She admits that this plan seems unnecessary; they could have taken a more tactical approach by picking off the enemy one by one, using Leeza to pinpoint the enemy's positions. On that note, she wonders where Leeza is. Chi says he has been repeatedly calling Leeza for the past hour, but has yet to receive a responses. Just as the Lamia are fearing she was captured too, Leeza weakly says she is present. There is audible anxiety in her voice, but she refuses to say what is wrong since the Lamia are "all the way over there" as it is; she tells them to just focus on their jobs, and mumbles about how she has to "wake up" before her voice fades away entirely. The Lamia are left feeling uneasy, and it is Frank who first refocuses on the task at hand: rescuing Rail. Since the Poet is the most inconspicuous of them all, Sickle orders him to take the lead. The Poet considers opening the driveway gate, taking into account Frank's size, but Chi is uneasy at attracting too much attention and instructs him to open the service entrance, and Frank to stay outside for the time being. When the Poet unlocks the entrance and Chi confirms no one is immediately around, he tells the Poet to wait with Frank while he and Sickle penetrate the interior. After Sickle and Chi enter the mansion, the Poet and Frank settle in to wait near the sleeping gangsters. Frank does not understand the Poet's abstruse speech, though the Poet does not mind; internally, he is musing on his powers with much more plain language. Not even he understands the principles behind his own powers, and normally that does not matter—tonight, as with other missions, he simply has to accomplish behind-the-scenes tasks while Chi and Sickle take care of other business. Still, he feels uneasy. As commonplace as the scene looks, he cannot shake the oddities of the mission so far: an enemy stronger than anything they had known up until now; Rail disappearing; and Leeza's strange condition. It feels as if their arrival at this mansion was at the hand of an outside manipulator, and an eerie sensation rises within him. Around the time the Poet was—is—putting the guards to sleep, a Nebula-owned truck parks in front of the mansion's front entrance. Renee tumbles out of the passenger seat, recovers, and confirms with one of the Russo guards that she is here for Placido's "regular checkup." More guards drift over and asks what the truck is for, and Renee claims she needs the help of her subordinates for the "checkups" this time. More than twenty people in white lab coats stream out of the truck's cargo door, alarming the guards, and Renee informs them that they will be taking the truck onto the grounds as well. The guard beside her protests, and then crashes to the ground. The other guards follow, all of them having been injected with some sort of knock-out drug by Renee's subordinates via syringes. Renee objects that her subordinates need to report this sort of thing to her, but is mollified when the man with the syringe says he "just did," and she issues instructions for the truck to be brought inside and around to the back. Just as Placido is sure Gustav does not plan on returning after all, he receives a telephone call from the very man. Gustav is not calling with information on Rail and Frank, but with information he claims is more important: he advises Placido to immediately evacuate the mansion and the state of Illinois if he values his life, and to trust no one. Before he hangs up, he says that he will be along to collect Carol posthaste and that he will be happy to give Placido a more detailed explanation later—provided Placido is still alive. Incensed, Placido prepares to have a subordinate summon Carol so that he can use her to remind Gustav of his place. Before he can, Chi and Sickle enter his room; he recognizes them from their wanted poster, and they ask him who gave him said wanted poster in the first place. Sickle informs him that everyone nearby is asleep, and Chi adds that some may never wake up; as Chi bores his blades down upon Placido, Renee and several researchers enter the room through a different entrance than the one Chi and Sickle used. Sickle and Chi freeze, the group's lab coats reminding them of Huey's researchers, while Placido takes the opportunity to identify them as two of the people from the wanted poster to Renee. The polite way he addresses Renee strongly indicates to the Lamia pair that she is the one behind the wanted poster, so Chi sets the tips of his claws against Placido's neck with the intention of gauging how the others respond. None of the scientists seem concerned for Placido's health, and Renee asks her subordinates for suggestions on what to say before they start something. A few false starts later, one of the white-coated men suggests simply shooting and does just that, firing a shot from his pistol. The others follow suit, all shooting at Chi and Sickle by the window. Up in the attic, Rail listens to the sound of Ricardo showering downstairs and once again insists to Christopher that having a personal bathroom is inherently "ritzy." Shortly after, both of them hear another sound mingling with that of the water, one that both know well—that of gunshots. The sound of the shower stops, and upon hearing the bathroom door open, Rail takes that as the sign to descend the ladder into Ricardo's room. Ricardo greets Rail as he is toweling off, and Rail is disappointed to find him impassive; they had hoped to catch him anxious and frightened by the sounds of gunshots in his own home. Ricardo neither seems to care that Rail and Christopher have caught him in a state of undress, and he dons his streetwear in front of them without fuss. Where Rail is oddly quiet, Christopher asks Ricardo what he wants them to do. Since it would be bad for all of them should the Russos find Rail, Ricardo suggests all three of them make a break for it. Ten minutes earlier, Graham and his friends mope around in the ruins of one of Chicago's abandoned factories. The past several days of Graham acting as bait for the Lamia have come to nothing, and he laments how foolish he was for believing in his enemies. His laments are interrupted when Shaft rushes into the factory and reports that the Lamia are invading the Russo mansion, where a strange group in lab coats have also shown up. Graham, after admitting that he "screwed up," lightly whacks his forehead with his wrench and declares that unpredictability is the spice of life. When the sound of gunshots reach the Poet and Frank outside the mansion, the Poet asks Leeza to update them on what is happening inside. There is a long moment of silence; then, Leeza screams. She wails something about her father's eye, and her shriek abruptly cuts off. At a sound from behind, the Poet turns to see no sign of Frank. Realizing the boy must have scaled the wall, the Poet calls for him to wait but hears no answer. After a moment's hesitation he runs for the rear entrance—only to see Chi and Sickle sprinting his way from that direction. Sickle shouts for him to run; he tries to tell them Frank went inside, but the sight of armed men in lab coats chasing after them is enough for him to join his comrades in flight. On a completely unrelated note, it is in this moment that a strange phenomenon is taking place across America. In every corner of the country, women of all backgrounds and ages scream at the exact same time in exactly the same way. Though some are taken to hospitals, the full extent and simultaneous nature of the phenomena are never publicly realized, and the event is ultimately chalked up to hysteria or auditory hallucinations. The sound of gunshots nearby has driven Carol under the bed in Lua's room, where she clutches her returned camera and cannot stop shaking—try as she might to overcome her fear. As Lua assures her everything is all right, the sound of banging on the door only rattles Carol more. Still, she manages to stand in a show of bravery—but when the door opens to reveal Gustav, she dissolves into tears and hugs him. Patting her head, he reminds her that he told her just the other day not to look at people and scream. Meanwhile, Christopher leads Rail and Ricardo down a corridor elsewhere in the mansion. With Ricardo in the rear, Rail quietly brings up to Chris how they saw Ricardo changing earlier. Christopher smiles; realizing that he may have predicted what is coming next, Rail voices what is on their mind anyway: "...a girl?" Christopher nonchalantly acknowledges it to be the case, pointing out that he has lived with Ricardo for more than a year. Ricardo himself never said anything, and Christopher thinks the only other people privy to the truth are Placido, the housekeeper, and likely a few of the old-timer executives. As they draw closer to a staircase, and thus the sound of gunshots, Christopher asks if Ricardo's private bathroom finally makes sense to Rail now. Rail grudgingly agrees that it does. Christopher's amusement fades when he notices a lull in the gunshots, and he takes off running toward Placido's room—evidently the heart of all the uproar. When he kicks open the door to the living quarters—a different entrance to the others previously used—he and Rail find Renee, who greets Rail pleasantly, if curiously enough. Shivering violently, Rail blurts that they are sure they blew the lab-coated group to bits in the alleyway. Christopher believes Rail is not lying. Rail further remembers personally witnessing Renee's neck snapping, and they reach a potential explanation: "She's...immortal?" Placido, intact despite the bullet-holes littering his clothes, clarifies incomplete immortal—which combined with the likes of Rail's people would in a way make a perfect liquor of immortality. Christopher does not miss how the researchers have the alertness of soldiers; in a bid to buy time, he guesses that Renee made all 1200 Mist Wall employees incomplete immortals so she could have her pick of 'guard dogs' from them, comparing the employees to her guinea pigs. Renee, bewildered, asks why she would pick guard dogs out of a bunch of rodents—and Rail is speechless at the revelation this is her genuine thought process. Her subordinates do not seem to be in any hurry, but Placido is less relaxed and orders Christopher to capture Rail. Christopher refuses on the grounds that Placido is not his true employer, and in the next moment Rail tosses several egg-shaped bombs into the air. The subsequent blast rocks the hallway Gustav, Carol, and Lua are in, doing little to calm Carol's nerves. Gustav suggests she calm herself for the sake of others if she cannot do so for herself, and Carol looks back at Lua—whom she had had to drag from their room by force. Lua asks if she may really escape with them; feeling a burst of courage at the sight of her face, Carol assures her that the two of them are information brokers and will help her stay safe until her "special someone" is released. Gustav notes that one should only offer aid commensurate with what one can afford to give, though he says he will cooperate with Carol this time if she remembers the lesson for the future. Carol exclaims she is calm as long as she is with him, and Gustav supposes such audacity is well suited to the Daily Days. Christopher and Rail, having been separated from Ricardo in the chaos of the explosion, head for the front garden thinking Ricardo may have gone ahead of them. Upon finding no one in the garden, Christopher goes back inside to search a second time; Rail, feeling responsible for Ricardo's situation, does not try to stop him. Graham, having just arrived, greets Rail and quips that Rail must be "asking for it" if they blew up his boss' house. Rail pales, wondering what to do, and is so miserable about the likelihood of their defeat that they begin to tear up. Krieck and his two companions approach, having spotted and overheard the duo, and Krieck patronizingly congratulates Graham for locating Rail—who he is surprised to learn is behind the explosions. Graham drives his wrench into Krieck's head, sending him flying into the garden shrubbery. Christopher smashes the other two's skulls together and lets their bodies drop onto the pavement, after which he bows to Graham and wishes him a good evening. Identifying Christopher as Ricardo's bodyguard, Graham—albeit puzzled—can only conclude that Christopher is protecting Rail from him for some reason. Christopher acknowledges that he is, and that he has heard Graham worked over his friends Chi, Sickle, and Frank. Graham asks if Christopher intends to fight; suddenly unsure, Christopher dithers over whether he should kill Graham or run—though he can tell Graham is tough, he is no longer certain if the same goes for him. He explains that he lost a fight to the death last year, his opponent at the time not even bothering to give the fight his all. Christopher has been too afraid to handle mortal combat ever since, and thinks he needs to "do a little killing" to recover his killing instincts. Graham is interested by the idea of being Christopher's rehab; he typically does not like breaking humans, but managing to break someone after "giving it everything has got" is a different story. The two proceed to do battle, while Rail stands helplessly to the side; feeling left out, and feeling unable to move, Rail wonders where is it they want to go. Back in Placido's destroyed room, only Placido and Renee remain in the wake of Rail's bombs; most of Renee's subordinates had left to chase Chi and Sickle, who had escaped via the window. At Renee's startled cry, he follows her gaze to see Gustav and Carol escaping with Lua—the one trump card he had intended to use against Ladd. Feeling the weight of Ladd's malice, Placido curses Gustav's 'betrayal' and wonders if Gustav himself leaked information about the mansion. Renee is meanwhile surprised to see Gustav on the premises, remarking that it is a "shame" he is getting away if Placido captured him. At Placido's ignorance, she proudly describes Gustav as the Vice President of one of the country's most distinguished information brokerages, an incredibly capable broker in his own right and famous even among the mafia. The notion that Gustav is, in fact, not the charlatan Placido thought he was has Placido rummaging for the paper upon which Gustav wrote Isaac and Miria's names. With feral pleasure, he vows to strangle the robber duo, the tattooed kid, and the rest with his own hands. Renee says he cannot do such a thing, and asks to see his forehead. Worried about side effects of the failed liquor, Placido obliges. She places her right hand on his forehead, thanks him for the meal, and devours him where he stands. Frank witnesses the devouring through the window—the first time he has ever witnessed such a thing—and knows he must tell the others of what he just saw. He does not have the chance; one of the men in lab coats shoots his thigh, and he screams in pain. Renee appears in the window, and her subordinates report that they were not able to catch Chi, Sickle, or the Poet. They confirm that Frank witnessed her devour Renee, berating her for her carelessness, and Renee looks Frank over and says they will need the truck's whole bed to transport him. As it is possible the tranquilizer they used on Frank might wear off, she instructs the men to give him three or four shots more and cut the tendons in his arms and legs for the sake of caution. At the sight of blades, Frank remembers how Huey's scalpel-wielding researchers had closed in on him and Rail. He remembers the ensuing pain and terror. He screams Rail's name. Rail takes off as soon as they hear Frank scream, ignoring Christopher's calls for them to stop. Only just dodging Graham's opportune thrust, Christopher calls for a timeout and attempts to negotiate a temporary ceasefire, but Graham is not won over. Just when it is looking like the fight will continue, a car comes careening their way as if to separate them by force. Graham prepares to attack the driver but stops upon seeing the driver is Ricardo; Christopher dives into the backseat, and Ricardo drives away at full speed. When it emerges that Ricardo does not properly know how to drive and that he has to half-stand in order to reach the pedals, Christopher hurriedly has Ricardo stop the car so they can switch places. Upon reaching the mansion's backyard, Rail is horrified to find the men in lab coats loading Frank's seemingly lifeless body into the truck, his hands and feet bloodied. Rail readies a bomb, undeterred by the researchers' guns—which they then aim at Frank, and Rail's hand shudders to a halt. Renee pops into view and asks if Rail came to rescue Frank; she finds the notion that one of Huey's guinea pigs would actually care about their friends a little unexpected, and wonders if Huey specifically created Rail to research human emotions or even converted them from what was once a normal human. As Rail despairs, Renee is glad for the opportunity to capture them alongside Frank and signals for her subordinates to do just that. They look at Rail like one would a guinea pig, and the subsequent wave of traumatic memories renders Rail nauseous, shaky, and helpless to act. A scream wells within them; in that moment, Christopher barges the car into the backyard and flings his door open, pulling Rail into the vehicle. As he passes Rail to Ricardo in the back, he tears the bomb out of Rail's hands, tosses it at the researchers, and drives away at top speed. Rail screams Frank's name as the car escapes through the rear gate, but Christopher is firm when he says it will be better to mount a rescue later; should they start a fight now, Frank would be at serious risk of dying from a stray bullet. In the backyard, Renee attempts to cheer herself and the others up with the expectation that Frank's friends are certain to mount a rescue attempt later on. When they do, Nebula can capture them then. Her claim that this was her plan all along is met with nothing but skepticism, though she sticks by it, and she then instructs her men to say nothing should the 'test subject' die. Whether Frank will live or die is still fifty-fifty, but for now the intention is to keep him alive—there are more ways one can experiment on a live subject than a dead one. Over at the front gate, Graham listens to the sound of gunshots and explosions inside the Russo mansion and wonders whether this is a sad or fun story. As Shaft tries to drag him away, Graham decides that Christopher is interesting enough that he will make for all sorts of "sad, fun stories" until Ladd returns. When Christopher reaches a lakeside park a good distance from the Russo mansion, Rail feebly thanks him but says this is as far as they go; they want to be left off here, and will not be going with the others. Ricardo gives Christopher a concerned look, but Christopher drives on and stops the car once the road widens. Rail thanks him, exits the car, and walks toward the forest before crumpling to their knees. Christopher approaches and asks if Rail is all right. Rail asks what is to become of Frank in a pleading voice, and Christopher gives them his honest thoughts: he thinks it is likely Frank is either headed for Nebula's headquarters or one of their factories in Elleson Hill. Since those researchers were highly reminiscent of Huey's researchers, Christopher thinks Frank should expect similar treatment—or, if he is lucky, a quick death. Rail, on the verge of tears, agrees that Renee reminded them specifically of Huey. Terrified and frustrated, they bubble over with questions: who are these people, these immortals; who are the Lamia; if the Lamia are not human but unnatural creatures, then what are immortals if not more unnatural—and thus overwrought, Rail wails. Tears give way to laughter, broken and bright, and Rail gasps more questions—how can they laugh like this when they are so sad, and if it is this funny then how come Christopher has not started laughing yet. Rail keeps laughing even as their suture scars scrack, and Christopher recalls how he too once laughed like Rail is laughing now. He cannot remember what triggered him. He knows he was likely in a lot of trouble to laugh in such a way, and thinks he did go "crazy, in the real sense of the word" after the fact. As someone already broken, he will not and cannot put Rail back together; he can only help Rail along if they are truly going to break like the rest of the Lamia. However, he thinks Rail is currently at a crossroads—and while this is a decision Rail needs to make on their own, he hopes someone who is still whole can pull Rail back from the edge. As he walks back toward the car, he adds, "You see, if that happens, I'm sure you'll be able to live as a human, Rail." As someone who idolizes humans, he admits to being a bit jealous. He further says that, while he is planning to act, what happens now is ultimately up to his employer Ricardo; if Rail wants to come along, Christopher will not stop him—he certainly cannot make him. Once Christopher and Ricardo drive away, Rail repeats "as a human" out loud and bursts into tears once more, unable to take such an unfunny joke. When both tears and laughter have finally run dry, Rail stands and mutters that Sham and Hilton are going to help them rescue Frank—should Frank still be alive. Steadily, they vow to "blow up" every single person in lab coats, and to do the same to Huey and everyone else who cut into theirs and Frank's bodies in the lab. From there, everyone who refused to accept them. The town itself. They will spread their legend to other towns—and then blow those up too, and the rest of their nightmares. At noon that day, multiple explosions go off across Elleson Hill at the exact same time, the ensuing roar so loud as to be heard all the way in Chicago. As Nebula-influenced facilities were the ones damaged, the event is interpreted as a clear act of terrorism against Nebula itself, and the anxiety which grips Elleson Hill reaches Chicago as well—anxiety that this incident portends worse to come. In a frowzy tavern on Chicago's outskirts, the Poet—after hearing the news on the radio—asks Sickle if she thinks Rail is responsible. They are the only Lamia remaining, as Chi left for New York early that morning to meet with Tim and Adele. With a sarcastic comment that it has been years since she heard the Poet speak so 'properly', she replies that she can think of nobody else who might have done it and invites the Poet to suggest alternatives. He says that, if this is a careless attempt on Rail's part to rescue Frank, it would have been impossible for Rail to have primed three hundred bombs around the town by himself in such a short time—thus, he thinks Rail likely had help from Sham or Hilton. With a scowl, Sickle points out that Sham and Hilton have vanished along with Leeza and wonder what it means; she suspects that Sham and Hilton are at least involved with the mass disappearances reported on the radio following the bombings. The news reporters seem to think the bomber and the kidnapper are the same person, which is somewhat comical when—as far as the Poet and Sickle know—they are actually opposing forces. Slipping back into obtuse language, the Poet returns to his ongoing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland analogy: Chicago is not Alice after all; the Lamia, the Russos, and Graham have been Alice all along, following Nebula's white rabbit. He wonders whether Renee is the Queen of Hearts, how the captive Alices should wake from their world, and whether they should wake up at all. Sickle murmurs he is talking more like himself. If the sound in the distance is another explosion, it is gone too quickly for either to be certain of it. Category:Light Novel Chapters